Over the last two decades, the use of the Internet and the World Wide Web has expanded to virtually every corner of the world. Web pages provide forums to communicate with a large audience, whether it is to provide news and information, to facilitate commerce, or to simply provide enjoyment. Due to the global nature of the Internet, a typical web application can be accessed by a multitude of devices from a multitude of locales using different types of web site browsers. Further complicating the matter, devices and browsers may be customized to control the presentation of a web page. A document root of the web application contains the elements that make up the presentation of a web page on a browser. A document root is the file system that contains the elements (e.g., HTML and GIF files) of a web application. In a web server, the document root is the file system used to build a web page.
As explained above, it is desirable for a web application to be capable of handling interaction with multiple determining factors, such as different types of devices, locales, brands, browsers, and the like. In essence, in order to ensure the broadest audience for a web application, it is necessary for a web application to be able to deal with multiple instances of any determining factors that might affect the presentation or composition of web pages of the web application. Currently, a web application typically has a completely separate document root for each combination of determining factors for use in presenting the web pages of the web application. There are several problems associated with having multiple document roots for a web application.
For one, creating the contents of multiple document roots consumes a large amount of overhead. For example, consider an instance where a web application is intended for presentation on two different types of devices (e.g., a desktop computer and a handheld computer) supporting two different locales (e.g., English and Japanese) and two different browsers (e.g., Microsoft Explorer and Netscape Navigator). There are eight possible combinations of determining factors, each requiring its own document root. Since a web application may be intended for presentation on many different types of devices supporting many different locales and browser types, a web application may require hundreds of document roots to facilitate web page presentation. It can require substantial resources to create the required document roots.
Furthermore, while there are probably differences among several, if not all document roots of a web application, typically many elements are duplicated across several document roots. If an element needs to be changed, and it is duplicated across many document roots, it must be changed in every instance. As explained above, for web applications with a large number of document roots this can be substantially resource intensive, both financially and technically. In some instances, the effort to track duplicate elements and change them may be prohibitively expensive.
Currently, in order to limit the creation and maintenance time for document roots, a typical web application limits the combination of determining factors that it can be presented on. Unfortunately, this can substantially limit the viability of a web application by limiting the number of potential accesses. As the number of different types of devices and other determining factors continues to expand due to technical innovations, the number of potential accesses will continue to decrease.
Accordingly, a need exists for a method that provides for easy creation of document roots for a web application that requires less personnel and financial resources than currently required. Furthermore, a need exists for a method that satisfies the above need, and provides for easy maintenance of document roots of a web application. Also, a need exists for a method that satisfies the above needs, and provides for easy creation and maintenance of document roots for a wide array of determining factors.